When is enough enough?

I was looking for a book on poultry health care so I checked Poultry Health and Management by David Sainsbury out from the library. When I got it home, it turned out to be a book about commercial poultry production, and it had pretty much nothing in it dealing with our sort of farm. It did have a some very interesting data however, like this chart which the author offers in the introduction.

Table 1.1a

Yield per laying fowl (eggs per annum – September to August

Systems of Management

1960 – 61

1971 – 72

1976 – 77

1989 – 90

1997 – 98

Free range

166

190

192

220

276

Battery cages

206

235

245

290

311

Deep litter and barn

187

209

224

250

287

All systems

185

230

243

253

294

Table 1.1b

Percentage distribution of laying fowl by system of management

Systems of Management

1960 – 61

1971 – 72

1976 – 77

1989 – 90

1997 – 98

Free range

30.9

4.5

1.9

13

15.5

Battery cages

19.3

88.1

96.1

85

80.1

Deep litter and barn

49.8

7.4

2

2

4.4

Now this may seem really esoteric, but look at two things in this chart: First, look at how the amount of eggs produced in Free Range farming systems had increased by 1998 to 35% more eggs that were being produced in the far more intensive battery farms in 1960. Now look at how the farming changed over that same almost 40 year period. By 1977 it looked as if battery cage farms were going to eliminate all other types of poultry farming. But by 1998 Free Range eggs were making a comeback, from less than 2 percent of all farms to over 15 percent, though admittedly their share was down to half of what it was in 1960. This may be a little misleading, as the 1960’s free range farm and the 1998 free range farm are almost certainly not the same.

This makes me think about how much of farming is driven by capitalism, and how much capitalism can be so insidious. By that I mean it does not seem to matter that farmers were able to increase free range egg production by 67% over 40 years, because they were still competing against the nasty battery cage producers who still more eggs. And ultimately what the vast majority of consumers want is cheap eggs, regardless of the production method.

A couple of years ago, California passed an initiative that mandated the elimination of abusive poultry farming practices, and the reaction from the industry was that the new law would eliminate egg production in California. When I look at data like that shown above, I have to wonder, when is enough enough? When are the gains that have been made in egg production in a free range model adequate? When are they adequate enough that we can eliminate caged production? Of course the dirty little secret is that “free range” as a legal definition in poultry farming is essentially a meaningless term. In the current system you could have a barn with hundreds of thousands of birds in it, and put a tiny door at one end with a tiny, gravel paddock beyond the door, and that might well qualify as “free range”, even though the vast majority of the birds never see the light of day.

Admittedly there must have been some marketing power behind Free Range as a selling tool or they would not have been able to come back from the brink of extinction that they seemed destined for in the mid 70’s. But with all food in America price is king. You can bet that 99¢ breakfast sandwich or burger came from very unhappy critters.

***

The good news here on the Nattress Ranch is that my birds are back in the game. With the aid of a 40 watt bulb in the coop, which we leave lit from dusk (at 4:30 here in northern Washington) until about midnight. Today we got 12 eggs today, including our first turkey egg. For us, of course, it is not about the cost of the eggs. We love the deep orange yolks we get from chickens raised on grass. We will never get 300 eggs a year, but then again, we do not have hybrid egg birds that would be necessary to achieve that level of production. Our rewards are in more than just the monetary return on investment. They have a lot more to do with my daughter Maggie’s love of wrangling those chickens and giving them an ever changing array of names. I think, in the long run, we are getting a pretty good deal.

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Welcome

This blog is an exploration of my region's food, season by season. I will focus on foraging, farming and how to cook what I find. I will also discuss food politics and the history of what we eat and why.

Foraging often reveals traditions that make this region unique. I will do my best to remind us of some of these vanishing traditions, because they reveal a lot about our cultural history.

Agriculture shapes the landscape we live in. Right now farming is undergoing a critical transition. More than ever we all need to understand the importance of diverse, regional food production, for what it means to our region, our bucolic surroundings, the safety and stability of our food system and our own personal health.

Exploring these food issues reveals a lot about our environmental and economic issues too. I will ask questions about the ways in which we are changing our food systems and how, as a result, our food is changing us.

This is a bountiful area, but also a changing area, and population growth, environmental degradation and vanishing food traditions threaten to change the way we feed ourselves forever.

Food is a lens through which to view where we are and how we got here. Because of this we can begin to ask the question about what to do next, so that we can live our lives more deliciously while leaving something behind that is worthy of the next generation.